Recent Entries

• HORSE RACING: THE SPORT WHERE A THOUSAND POUNDS OF ANIMAL DECID

  by Richard Waters Apr 20
  Two minutes of thunder, a lifetime of stories, and the eternal question of whether you're watching sport or something older than sport entirely The horse does not know it's a race. Let's just get that out there immediately, before the romance takes over and the pageantry seduces us and the two m...

• CRICKET: THE SPORT THAT LASTS FIVE DAYS AND STILL ENDS IN A DRA

  by Richard Waters Apr 16
  A game of infinite patience, sudden violence, and tea breaks that are not optional Cricket will not explain itself to you. This is the first thing you need to understand. Every other major sport on earth makes some attempt at accessibility — rules written to be learnable, scoring designed ...

• SURFING: THE ONLY SPORT WHERE THE PLAYING FIELD IS TRYING TO KI

  by Richard Waters Apr 1
  A wave has no memory of you. It will arrive the same whether you're ready or not. It will leave the same whether you caught it or didn't. The ocean does not care about you. Let's establish this immediately, before we talk about anything else. Before the culture and the competitions and the mytho...

• MMA: THE SPORT THAT ATE EVERY OTHER FIGHTING ART AND ASKED WHAT

  by Richard Waters Mar 28
  Eight sides of cage, no rules against being excellent at multiple ways to end a fight The first time you watch a real MMA fight — not a highlight, not a clip, the whole thing from walkout to final horn — something shifts in how you understand athletic competition. Not because of the ...

• GOLF: THE SPORT THAT WILL HUMBLE YOU IN WAYS YOU DIDN'T KNOW WE

  by Richard Waters Mar 7
  Four hours of walking, six inches of grass, and a lifetime of chasing a feeling you touched once and can't get back Nobody warned you it would do this to you. You played your first round. Maybe you were terrible — probably you were terrible — but somewhere on that course, on one spec...